One of the big knocks on any proposed reforms to health care in this nation is the idea that if we do some kind of reform, it automatically means that we’re going to wind up “rationing” care.
Of course, this point is used to scare the socks off of people, thinking that granny won’t be able to get a pacemaker because President Obama’s Death Panel decided she’s deadweight and should die. People have these horrible stories of healthcare in other places, where it’s rationed, and they are fearful they won’t be covered for when they fall and break their arm; they’ll have to go around for the rest of their life with a bone sticking out or something.
The thing is… we ALREADY ration healthcare. We ration it by simply making it impossible for over 40 million people in America to obtain.
“Look at Canada,” says Charles Krauthammer. “Look at Britain. They got hooked; now they ration. So will we.”
So do we. This is not an arguable proposition. It is not a difference of opinion, or a conversation about semantics. We ration. We ration without discussion, remorse or concern. We ration health care the way we ration other goods: We make it too expensive for everyone to afford.
His point is very simple- we ration healthcare by making it so expensive that not everyone can buy it. This is stupid, of course. The reality is that we spend more on healthcare with crappier results than dozens of other western, industrialized nations. Our life expectancy is lower, our infant mortality rate is higher, our numbers of sick people are greater…
More from Klein, talking about numbers that show in some single-payer places people have to wait for care for considerably longer than we do in the USA:
The numbers are almost mirror images of each other. Twenty-seven percent of Canadians wait more than four months for treatment, versus only four percent of Americans. Twenty-four percent of Americans can’t afford medical care at all, versus only 6 percent of Canadians.
So let me ask you this: What’s worse, having to wait for some kinds of treatment but knowing you’ll eventually get it?
Or not being able to get the health care at all?
Because right now, the system we have set up in the USA is that those of us who HAVE health coverage don’t have to wait- but tens of millions of our fellow citizens don’t get care at all. They die from stuff that wouldn’t kill the insured, because they can’t go get it taken care of until it’s an emergency- and often until it’s too late.
The only way I’d let Rose into the Hall of Fame is after he dies, THEN I might posthumously reinstate him and allow the HoF to let him in. I’d do the same for the other guys who’d probably get in if they hadn’t been booted for betting on baseball.
But even that… I don’t know. Maybe the HoF should have a separate section somehow and say “these guys should be in the regular Hall of Fame, but their behavior was so bad that instead we’re forced to recognize both their baseball accomplishments and how they screwed over the game” or something like that.
Letting Rose in while he’s alive, though? No-brainer… the answer is “absolutely not.”
The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
There are many disturbing details in the current bill that Washington is trying to rush through Congress, but we must stick to a discussion of the issues and not get sidetracked by tactics that can be accused of leading to intimidation or harassment. Such tactics diminish our nation’s civil discourse which we need now more than ever because the fine print in this outrageous health care proposal must be understood clearly and not get lost in conscientious voters’ passion to want to make elected officials hear what we are saying. Let’s not give the proponents of nationalized health care any reason to criticize us.
Okay, a couple of things. It’s pretty hypocritical for her to outright lie with stuff about “Obama’s ‘death panel’” on Friday and then tell people not to be hysterical and to urge “civil discourse” on Sunday.
Newt Gingrich (who still thinks he’s a potential candidate for President in 2012!) is also out there spreading the death panel lie:
http://www.dailykostv.com/w/002042/
Look at what Dr. Emmanuel has said, the President’s advisor who has certainly implied a willingness to consider euthanasia, and then you look at the historic record of euthanasia. You know, should Down syndrome children be at risk of the government, or should their lives be protected?
The facts are this: There are no “death panels” in any of the proposed healthcare reform bills. None. That’s a lie, plain and simple. There’s nothing advocating euthanasia in the healthcare reform bill, either.
http://www.dailykostv.com/w/002038/
The origin of this talk of “death panels” and so forth usually stems from the “deathers” (a new nickname for the people spreading this lie, echoing the nickname of “birthers” for the whack jobs who think Obama’s not an American) pointing to something that an Obama adviser once wrote.
One of the advisers to the Obama Administration is a guy named Ezekiel Emanuel. He’s the brother of Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, but that’s not how he got his job; he got his job because for years he’s been an expert in the bioethics field. His original training and practice was as an oncologist, specializing in breast cancer.
Ezekiak Emanuel has impeccable credentials. He’s got not one but TWO doctorates (an MD and a PhD) from Harvard and a Master’s degree from Oxford. Emanuel’s job as a bioethicist is to try and ensure that the discussion and debate around medical care keeps people’s best interests at heart along with society’s overall interests.
(I find it amazing that people would rather continue the present system where private, for-profit corporations get to make these life-and-death decisions on people’s heathcare. You know perfectly well that such companies are making those decisions not based on any type of “public good”, or what’s best for the person, but based instead on profit considerations. Money. It’s pretty American that these nutjobs are at town halls defending money considerations over public good, I guess.)
The controversy and where these people are accusing Dr Emanuel of wanting to kill Sarah Palin’s baby stem from a passage in a paper he wrote where he said this:
This civic republican or deliberative democratic conception of the good provides both procedural and substantive insights for developing a just allocation of health care resources. Procedurally, it suggests the need for public forums to deliberate about which health services should be considered basic and should be socially guaranteed. Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity-those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations-are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Conversely, services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia. A less obvious example is guaranteeing neuropsychological services to ensure children with learning disabilities can read and learn to reason.
I added the emphasis. (h/t to Luis, who also did a terrific blog piece on this matter.)
The point here is that Dr Emanuel didn’t say “we are going to kill the people who aren’t useful to society”. What he’s talking about is if you have limited resources, what things should you guarantee, and then which things should you provide as extras if you’re able to?
It’s only if you don’t have enough resources to guarantee everything to all people that you have to start deciding which things are basic and which are extra.
That, right there, is where this whole talk of “death panels” and such nonsense is coming from. You can read it for yourself and decide if the guy is talking about forming some kind of death panel, but if you come to that conclusion, you’re pretty stupid and therefore probably not reading this blog in the first place.
(I live with my delusion that only intelligent, decent people from all sides of the political spectrum read what I write. Let me continue in this delusion, please.)
Gingrich’s comments are worse than Palin’s. Gingrich outright lies and accuses Emanuel of being for euthanasia, when the plain text of what Emanuel wrote indicates that it’s only talking about he’s talking about limited resources.
As Luis put it, say you’ve got ten people on a waiting list for a liver transplant. There’s an accident and a guy dies and now there’s ONE liver available. Who gets the liver? That’s the kind of question that Dr Emanuel is discussing and the type of thing that bioethicists like him sit around and try to discuss in a reasonable, civil manner.
Newt Gingrich is lying to you. He’s intentionally lying about Emanuel being willing to kill your granny so you’ll be upset and against healthcare reform.
Sarah Palin is also lying to you. She’s using the language like “Obama’s death panels” and talking about how her precious baby with Down’s is at risk of being killed by those death panels.
Ask yourself why these people are lying to you? Who’s telling the truth? Who’s trying to scare you and use fear to manipulate you, and who’s trying to use common sense?
If you STILL want to be against healthcare reform, that’s fine. But do it for the right reasons, not because you’re afraid that Obama is some horrible (secretblackmuslimterrorist) guy who’s going to set up a death panel to determine who gets healthcare and who doesn’t.
And for crying out loud, start spreading the truth about hypocrites like Palin, who whip people up with their “death panel” rhetoric one day and then urge “civil discourse” the next day.